Jump in unpaid overtime during pandemic

Employees worked on average 6.13 hours of unpaid work each week in 2021, a 30 per cent increase over the life of the pandemic.

Unpaid work hit an eight-year high in 2021. Picture: AAP

Employees worked on average 6.13 hours of unpaid work each week in 2021, an eight-year high and a 30 per cent increase over the life of the Covid pandemic, ­research by the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work has found.

Polling 1048 workers for its annual survey of unpaid overtime, the centre said the pandemic appeared to have accelerated the nation’s “time-theft crisis”, with 26 per cent of workers reporting that their ­employers’ expectations of their availability had increased. With the pandemic causing a significant shift to work-from-home ­arrangements, 39 per cent of employees said their employer remotely monitored their activity and a further 17 per cent said they were unsure whether they were being electronically monitored.

One in three workers said they were being monitored via webcam and 30 per cent said every keystroke was being ­recorded.

The 6.13 hours of unpaid work each week is the highest annual figure recorded by the centre since 2013, and is up from 5.25 hours in unpaid overtime in 2020, and 4.62 hours in 2019.

Young workers aged 18 to 29 performed the most unpaid overtime, averaging 8.17 hours a week.

Dan Nahum, economist at the Centre for Future Work, said the survey results suggested working from home did not necessarily improve work life in favour of employees.

The survey found unpaid overtime was highest among full-time workers, who reported an average of 6.91 hours per week.

Mr Nahum said even among part-time and casual workers, many of whom were anxious to get more paid work, unpaid overtime was endemic: 4.55 hours a week for part-time workers, 5.03 hours a week for casual workers.